For Smoak--and those who still care about the Read. Remember, Pynchon has never stopped.

[David Morris]

Laura,

How so has the Plist lost its middle?

At this particular time, I think the fallacy of a "middle" has nearly sent
this US ship of state into the rocks.

There is no middle without an accepted geometry, an agreeable moral
landscape.  Or at least some rules of engagement.

The Plist has famously resisted all rules. Anarchy works here, more or
less...

Love,
David Morris

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 3:42 PM Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hard to have rational discussions about the excluded middle when the list
> has, it seems, excluded its own middle.
>
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 4:37 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> > Everybody is satirized in a Pynchon book. And everybody draws their own
> > conclusions.  The list is dead, no one talks about the texts, no
> tolerance
> > for group reads. The world of online communication is increasingly
> reduced
> > to tweets. By 2035 the storms will be upon us if we  are lucky enough to
> > have avoided the nuclear forecast of GR.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Mar 31, 2018, at 2:30 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > ​IM> [Ernie's]​ satirized, as is his daughter, by the narrative
> > >
> > > This, emphatically. Only after Vineland did some readers wonder “maybe
> > > Pynchon isn't, y'know, totally aligned with my nostalgia for les
> > glorieuses
> > > années 1960, championing the Counterforce 'n stuff."
> > >
> > > Only after M&D did some look back at the science and technologists in
> GR
> > > and see along with the anger and warning (which are there) the
> attraction
> > > and engagement (which were also there all along).
> > >
> > > On present trends, people will stop citing Ernie's speech as proof of
> P's
> > > hatred and fear of the Internet about... oh, 2035?
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 5:54 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Ernie is a fool.  He's right about the obvious,  about the history of
> > >> the Internet and how we spend too much time on it,
> > >> but his grasp of the world we actually
> > >> live in is warped by his political obsessions, his nostalgically
> > >> negative view of America.
> > >> He's satirized, as is his daughter, by the narrative.
> > >>
> > >> He's Oedipa Mass, only older, not wiser.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 3:49 PM, Thomas Eckhardt
> > >> <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> > >>> This discussion thread might be of interest to you:
> > >>>
> > >>> https://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=1310&msg=
> > >> 177333&sort=thread
> > >>>
> > >>>> I'll end my sad rant
> > >>>> with Ernie's words in BE (pg. 419):
> > >>>>
> > >>>> "You serious? Believe that while you still can, Sunshine. You know
> > where
> > >>>> it
> > >>>> all comes from, this online paradise of yours? It started back
> during
> > >> the
> > >>>> Cold War, when think tanks were full of geniuses plotting nuclear
> > >>>> scenarios. Attache cases and horn-rims, every appearance of
> scholarly
> > >>>> sanity, going in to work everyday to imagine all the ways the world
> > was
> > >>>> going to end. Your internet, back then the Defense Department call
> > >>>> DARPAnet, the real purpose was to assure survival of U.S. command
> and
> > >>>> control after a nuclear exchange with the Soviets."
> > >>>>
> > >>>> BE (pg. 420 (he-he)):
> > >>>>
> > >>>> "Yep, and your Internet was their invention, this magical
> convenience
> > >> that
> > >>>> creeps now  like a smell through the smallest details of our lives,
> > the
> > >>>> shopping, the housework, the homework, the taxes, absorbing our
> > energy,
> > >>>> eating up our precious time. And there's no innocence. Anywhere.
> Never
> > >>>> was.
> > >>>> It was conceived in sin, the worst possible. As it kept growing, it
> > >> never
> > >>>> stopped carrying in its heart a bitter-cold death wish for the
> planet,
> > >> and
> > >>>> don't think anything has changed, kid."
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >> --
> > >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >>
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>